HOBART – The former clerk/treasurer of the Town of Lone Wolf appeared in Kiowa County District Court on March 14, almost three weeks after she was charged with embezzlement of municipal funds.
Bonnie Charlene Keesee, 51, of Sentinel, pleaded not guilty and was released from custody on her own recognizance. Judge Rick Marsh instructed her to reappear in court on May 18 with legal counsel.
Her co-defendant, Margrett Mae Horton, the former office manager at Town Hall, has not made her initial appearance in court but has retained an attorney, J. David Ogle, from Oklahoma City, court records show.
District Attorney David Thomas and Assistant D.A. Daniel Jacobsma filed embezzlement counts against both women in the wake of two audits.
Horton is accused of embezzling $17,524 from municipal coffers by placing her two dependent children on the town’s health insurance program between July 1, 2015, and Dec. 3, 2017.
The town’s code of ordinances did not provide for paid health insurance for family members of employees. Additionally, minutes of Board of Trustees and Public Works Authority meetings over a 10-year period, from January 2008 through December 2017, did not reflect approval of dependent health insurance coverage.
Horton “admitted that she purchased the insurance for her children” without obtaining approval from the town trustees, State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd wrote last year in her report on the audit of Lone Wolf’s municipal government.
Keesee and Horton are named jointly in a felony count accusing them of embezzling $2,300 from the sale of fireworks purchased for the town’s annual Independence Day celebration: $1,500 in 2015 and $800 in 2016.
The state audit revealed that Horton, Keesee and another former town employee, Rick Harris, operated a fireworks stand, bought fireworks from a wholesaler “and sold them to the Town” for the July 4 celebration.
Horton paid a fireworks wholesaler $7,662.84 from her personal bank account on July 6, 2015, ledgers reflect. The next day $4,500 “was transferred directly from the town bank account to Horton’s personal bank account,” the state audit found.
“According to Horton, the $4,500 was payment for the Town’s fireworks.” However, the fireworks wholesaler said the town’s fireworks cost $3,000. “As such, Horton – and presumably Harris and Keesee – profited … $1,500 from the Town,” the audit reports.
A year later, on July 6, 2016, Horton paid $7,910.12 from her personal bank account to the fireworks wholesaler, records show. “The next day she withdrew $3,800 from the town bank account,” the state audit relates.
According to the fireworks wholesaler, fireworks for the town cost $3,000, like the year before. Consequently, “Horton – and presumably Harris and Keesee – profited a total of $800 from the Town,” Byrd wrote.
Harris, who was a town maintenance employee, has since died.
The state auditor pointed to Article 10, Section 11, of the Oklahoma Constitution, which states that an “officer receiving interest, profit or perquisites … arising from the use or loan of public funds in his hands” constitutes a felony crime.
2 audits raise red flags
The criminal charges resulted from a probe conducted by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation that was triggered by an investigative audit performed by the State Auditor’s staff in response to a request from the Board of Trustees of Lone Wolf, a town of approximately 400 residents.
The catalyst for the trustees’ request was an audit performed by Furrh & Associates of Lawton, which examined the town’s records for fiscal year 2015, 2016 and 2017 and identified “questionable financial activity,” Byrd wrote.
The state audit indicated “there was a lot more” town money that was unaccounted for, “but we couldn’t find anything else that we could charge criminally,” Thomas said.
For example, a renewal-rate record from Blue Cross Blue Shield showed “the Town paid for the Horton children’s insurance since at least 2010,” but municipal records dating back to 2010 were not available, the state auditor reported. “It is estimated that the Town would have paid an additional $47,526 on such unauthorized coverage between 2011 and 2015,” Byrd wrote.
Lack of oversight
Horton “was allowed to conduct the majority of the Town’s day-to-day business without oversight” from either Keesee or the Board of Trustees, the state audit found. Keesee “said that she signed purchase orders and checks once per month and allowed Horton to manage the day-to-day operations of Town Hall,” the state audit says.
The audit revealed that Keesee sometimes signed blank checks, and trustees sometimes signed purchase orders without dollar amounts, “allowing anyone with access to these documents to issue them with no oversight.”
Also, purchase orders “often did not include information reflecting what was purchased, and receipts and itemized invoices were routinely not attached.”